Handful of Sky (6 page)

“Just what made you so sure I’d come?” she challenged him with considerably more starch in her voice than she felt at that wobbly moment.

“Well, I was pretty sure you
wouldn’t
come if I called myself. That’s why I got Jake to get in touch with your uncle, and what contractor worth his, or her,” he added with elaborate emphasis, “salt would pass up the chance to meet Mr. Rodeo himself?”

“I guess that makes me pretty predictable, but at least I’m worth my salt,” Shallie retorted, remembering his lesson about being the first to laugh at yourself.

His laughter at her self-mocking comment rolled deep and gentle in the darkness. “Seems you don’t take yourself quite as seriously when you’re away from a rodeo arena.”

Shallie took his amusement as a compliment, responding to his warm friendliness. “I suppose I’m learning to do what you advised me to, laugh at myself.”

His face above hers was shadowed, his expression unreadable. Her own was clearly visible, upturned to the moonlight. She turned away from him, feeling too exposed, too vulnerable. She looked back at the horses, eager to turn the conversation away from herself. She needed a moment to collect her emotions.

“Are you planning to have an auction?”

“Early next week. Soon as we pick out any horses worth keeping. Most of them are pretty sorry.” He took a place beside Shallie. His nearness triggered those same baffling sensations she’d first experienced when helping him to rig up at the rodeo. She had to concentrate to come up with a halfway intelligent remark.

“Where did they all come from?” she asked, already knowing the answer as well as any contractor.

“Everywhere. Every rancher and farmer between here and Butte, Montana, who buys his kid a horse, then finds out that Junior can’t ride the pony, thinks he’s got another Midnight on his hands.”

Shallie laughed at the comparison between the mangy creatures in front of her and the legendary bronc Midnight.

“It
is
pretty funny,” he went on. “They all think they’ll sell their ‘killer’ horse to the Circle M and make a fortune. Turns out most of these ‘outlaw’ animals couldn’t buck off a wet saddle blanket.”

Shallie knew there was one horse in the pack that could do that and much more. She climbed up on a wooden railing to find his bluish mane. As hard as she tried to ignore the disturbing presence of the man beside her, she was acutely aware of his gaze following the curves of her body as closely as the jeans and tailored shirt she wore.

“How long . . .” Her voice came out squeaky and high. She cleared her throat and started again. “How long will it take for you to buck out all these horses?” She turned toward him and the answer to her question was lost forever.

She was standing above him so that now it was his face that was lit by the moon’s radiance. It was precisely the face she would have seen in her dream if she hadn’t been awakened. There was an uncompromising ruggedness to his high cheekbones, and his eyes held a wildness that matched the panther quickness of his body. Looking into those eyes for the first time told Shallie everything she would ever need to know about the secret to this man’s success at bronc riding—he was united with the wild mounts he rode.

“You said Jake McIver is your grandfather?”

“I did indeed.”

“That means . . . you’re Hunt McIver.”

“Last time I checked my driver’s license that’s what it said.”

“What in God’s name is a four-time world bronc-riding champion doing competing at an amateur rodeo?”

The cocky lilt abruptly faded from Hunt’s voice. “Those four buckles happened a long time ago.”

Shallie riffled through her mental files searching for any bit of gossip she’d heard about Hunt McIver. For the first time she regretted her lack of interest in the sport’s
personality parade. All she could remember was that after winning four consecutive world titles at the National Finals, Hunt McIver had had a couple of bad years compounded by some severe injuries. She also vaguely remembered that he’d earned quite a reputation as a rakehell in a sport that had more than its share.

“But you’re still riding on the pro circuit, aren’t you?”

“Some folks would argue with you about whether what I’ve been doing lately is actually riding or not, but, yes, I’m still holding my PRCA card,” Hunt answered, referring to the membership card issued by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys of America that entitled the cowboys holding it to compete in any of the more than 650 PRCA-sanctioned rodeos held annually.

“You wouldn’t have that card for long, would you, if the Association knew you were riding in amateur rodeos?” Shallie already knew the answer, but she was hoping he might provide the response to an even larger question.

“Of course not,” Hunt answered edgily. “They’d jerk it so fast my head would spin. That’s why I didn’t ride under my own name or pick up the prize money. Why? Are you planning to report me?”

“No.” Shallie watched the roan’s head, colored the thin blue of skim milk, rise above the others. No, she wouldn’t give away Hunt McIver’s secret, but she was careful to file it mentally in a convenient spot. It could
prove quite useful in the future. “Why did you do it then if you weren’t even planning on collecting the prize money?”

She felt his shoulder, lightly touching the outer side of her thigh, shift uncomfortably. She knew she was treading on touchy ground. She glanced down at him. His burning, intense eyes were fastened on some invisible object in the dark distance.

“I was never intending to make off with some hometown hero’s prize money. I just wanted to ride. I was lucky I drew your top bronc. I needed a good ride. Needed it bad. Just me and an honest horse. Not Hunt McIver, one-time bronc-busting champion with a couple thousand fans waiting to see if he still had it or not. For one afternoon I wanted to be any cowboy putting down his money and taking his chances. I wanted to rodeo, pure and simple. To get down into that chute without feeling like I had a business manager and contracts for commercials and offers from Hollywood and a big, fat, bloated reputation all riding on my back. Just me and a good horse, that’s all I wanted. Can you understand that, Shallie?”

“I think anyone who really loves rodeo can understand.” Shallie’s tone spoke more than her words about the bond of understanding between them. It was a bond forged by a mutual love of the raw heart of rodeo which had much more to do with the sport’s beginnings on a forsaken prairie somewhere when men and mounts
faced one another in contests played out for survival, not for the cheers of crowds seated in concrete arenas.

“Good,” Hunt boomed out with a heartiness that sounded forced to Shallie’s ears. “Now that we’ve got that all squared away, I’m taking you to meet my grandfather. He heard you were pretty and—” Hunt stopped. He scooped Shallie off the fence and into his arms. “I want to show him that the rumors were true.” He held Shallie against his chest, his arm crooked around the swell of her buttocks. The combination of being swept off the railing and feeling the hard press of his body against hers left Shallie temporarily short of breath.

He grinned triumphantly up at her, his full lips split by the gleam of solid, white teeth. It was a smile that Shallie reckoned a goodly number of women had succumbed to over the years. She put her hands on the broad muscles of his shoulders to steady and to lever herself away from him. He lowered her slowly until his taunting lips were level with Shallie’s breasts. If he were to turn his head to either side their tips, pressing against the thin cotton of her blouse, would be at his mouth.

A scuffle and the snort of unsuccessfully suppressed laughter burst from the darkness behind them. Shallie distinguished Wade’s dumpy form in the shadows. Once again he’d caught her in a less than authoritative position. She tried to reclaim what shreds of dignity she might have left by demanding icily, “Mr. McIver, if you
would be so good as to put me down, I would appreciate it greatly.”

With an agonizing slowness he lowered her, managing to graze every inch of her body with his own during the descent. When she was finally on the ground, Hunt turned his attention to the intruder lurking behind them. In two surprisingly swift steps he had closed the distance between himself and Wade and was confronting him face to face.

“Who the hell are you?” he roared at the eavesdropper. “And what are you doing prowling around like a thief?”

“He works for me,” Shallie interjected.

“Are you in the habit of peeping on your boss, mister?”

“Nuh-nuh-no,” Hoskins stammered meekly. “I was just looking to find out what I should do with the steers we brung.”

“What do you think you should do? Serve them all punch in demitasse cups?” Hunt’s sarcasm bit like a whip. “Get the stock unloaded, man. My livestock superintendent will tell you where the stock tank is and show you where you’re bunking tonight. And, as long as you’re on Circle M property, don’t go sneaking around like some damned sewer rat. Is that understood?”

“Yuh-yuh-yessir.” Hoskins sounded like a frightened bully called up in front of the principal. As he turned to
leave, however, he slashed Shallie with a glare burning with smoldering resentment.

“Can’t say I’m too impressed with your hired help,” Hunt announced.

“We can’t afford to pay much,” Shallie admitted. “We take what we can get.”

“Well, you don’t have to take weasels like him. Come on, let’s get up to the house. Jake McIver isn’t used to waiting for anyone.”

I
t’s about damn time you
two showed up. You shouldn’t keep an old man waiting like this.” Jake McIver’s age-rusted voice bellowed out at the sound of the heavy, carved front door opening. Shallie was astonished by the size of the stone house as well as the magnificence of its furnishings. A chandelier lighted one entryway lined with antique photographs of McIvers long since gone to their eternal reward. It opened onto a sunken living room, where the elder McIver held court before a fireplace that extended from the floor to the vaulted ceiling. The floor was of smoothly polished stone taken from the nearby riverbed. Western paintings by masters like Frederic Remington graced the walls, which were paneled in a light oak. Sculptures sitting about the mammoth room on their own individually lit pedestals caught bucking horses at the peak of their leaps and ropers chasing calves, their lassos frozen above the fleeing beasts.

The only sour note in the baronial room was sounded from the thronelike chair Jake McIver occupied. It was composed entirely of long, curving cattle horns, fitting for McIver’s majestically dominating air, which Shallie had come to associate with contractors who were either trying to live up to the stereotype of the rodeo producer or who had had a hand in producing it. McIver belonged to the latter group. From the crown of the Stetson hat that Shallie was sure he only removed at bedtime and reluctantly even then, to the diamond Circle M stickpin glistening on his hand-tailored Western shirt, to the tips of his ostrich-skin boots, Jake McIver was every inch the stereotypical contractor.

As if completing the image, a young woman of dark and sultry beauty was curled at his feet like a royal attendant. Her slender, manicured hand rested on the old man’s knee. A long, silken curtain of ebony hair framed her elegantly high-cheeked face. Meticulously applied makeup added an extra note of hauteur to her aloof features. Shallie became uncomfortably aware of her wind-tossed locks and grimy jeans. As she looked more closely, she realized that the woman’s sophistication belied her youth—she couldn’t be out of her early twenties. She recalled her uncle telling her that McIver had seen the sunny side of seventy long ago. So, she concluded, the old goat had earned his reputation.

“Granddad, I’d like to introduce you to—”

“Who the hell are you introducing?” Jake McIver cut his grandson off. “You think I don’t know who this little filly is? This is John Larkin’s little girl. And just as pretty as I heard she was.” The old man’s agate-sharp eyes glittered as they surveyed Shallie’s lean curves. To Shallie it felt as if he were drinking in her youth, feeding vampirishly upon it with his eyes. The demeaning appraisal irked her. Not only hadn’t old McIver accepted her as a business associate, he was treating her like a bit of feminine fluff to be admired, then acquired. Any hope of being recognized as an equal would vanish if she didn’t act quickly.

“And you,” Shallie said, her voice low and calm, her gaze pointedly taking in the woman at his side, “appear to be everything that I heard
you
were.”

For a stunned moment old McIver didn’t speak. A brooding grayness lowered his thick eyebrows. The heavy mood, though, lifted as suddenly as it had fallen and he burst out in a booming laugh. “You can bet your boots on that, gal. You can just bet that Jake McIver is everything, and more, that folks say he is. Come on over here and sit down. I don’t bite, do I, Trish?”

“Not where it shows, Sugar,” the dark-tressed beauty purred, giving him a feline smile.

Shallie descended the low steps into the living room and seated herself at a chair somewhat removed from the others. Hunt followed, sprawling out on a richly
upholstered, ivory-colored sofa. But Shallie detected something of the crouched predator in his determinedly casual pose, putting a wary distance between himself and his grandfather. No one spoke until Jake McIver cut the silence.

“What the hell kind of a name is Shallie?”

Shallie hated the question and the reply she always had to issue to it. “It’s short for Shalimar.”

“Shalimar? You mean like the perfume?” McIver continued to probe, insensitive to her embarrassment.

Shallie nodded.

McIver looked puzzled for a moment, then roared out his by now familiar laughter. “That’s probably how you got started, wasn’t it? Your mama’s perfume. Is that it? Did old John name you after your mama’s perfume?”

Shallie was grateful for the dim lighting, otherwise McIver would have had another object of ridicule—her flaming red cheeks.

“You don’t have to answer that, Shallie.” Hunt’s voice, low and tight, cut through the bray of laughter. “The old man’s only kidding.”